Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer

Beirut: Although Lebanon’s President-elect Bashir Gemayel was
assassinated on September 14, 1982 — along with 26 others who perished
when a bomb exploded in the Phalange Party headquarters in Ashrafieh —
the country’s Judicial Council finally launched a trial in absentia,
calling on Habib Shartouni, who confessed to planting the bomb before
escaping from prison, to turn himself in.

Jean Fahd, the
magistrate entrusted with the case, issued a statement that gave
Shartouni an ultimatum to hand himself over to the judiciary “within 24
hours at the latest from the March 3, 2017 trial session”, though it is
unclear what meaning that ultimatum has.

Fahd further demanded proof that Nabeel Al Alam, a second culprit involved in the plot, is dead Shartouni,
a member of the Syrian Social National Party (SSNP), was born into a
Maronite Catholic family in Aley (Chouf Mountains) and served in one of
the SSNP stations there though he fled to Cyprus and France at the
beginning of the civil war where he attended university and obtained a
business degree. During a 1977 visit to Lebanon, he formally joined the
SSNP and became an active member though it was unclear whether Syrian
intelligence operatives recruited him in France. It was in Paris that he
met Nabeel Al Alam, then a leading SSNP intelligence lieutenant, who
made a big impression on him.

Al Alam knew that Shartouni’s family
members lived in the same building where the Phalange Party kept a
headquarters, which most probably justified the recruitment. Two days
after the assassination, the 24-years-old Shartouni was arrested by the
Lebanese Forces and handed over to the Lebanese judiciary. In his
confession, he called Bashir a traitor and accused him of selling the
country to Israel, and acknowledged that he “was given the explosives
and the fancy long-range electronic detonator by Al Alam, who promptly
fled to Syria and vanished.

The assassin spent eight years at the Roumieh prison without a trial,
but escaped on October 13, 1990 under mysterious circumstances, during
the final Syrian offensive in Lebanon that crippled the Michel Aoun
government and forced the latter into exile. Lebanese authorities
believed the assassin received assistance from the Syrians and moved to
Damascus where he may still be.

The latest trial, even if it is in
absentia, relating to the assassination of an elected head of state at
the height of a civil war that saw the country simultaneously occupied
by both Israel and Syria, is intended to deliver justice. His widow,
Solange Gemayel, spoke outside the Higher Judicial Council building on
Friday, where she declared: “I waited 34 years to witness the trial of
Bashir’s killers,” while their son, Nadim Gemayel, added his own
perspective. “It is time to try all criminals, including Shartouni,”
said the Beirut parliamentarian, pleading with authorities that they
should no longer “delay the overdue trial”.

One of the country’s
leading statesmen, Edmond Rizk, summarised the latest legal initiative
when he said: “We want the judiciary to fully carry out its role and
remind everyone that this trial is not intended to avenge anyone, but to
restore the state’s authority beginning with its judiciary.”